Eeeelectric Doors!

NEW: Now with an electric doorlock!

We made the first step towards true 24h accessibility of the lab: Keyfobs & electric doorlocks!

How we did it?

Our requirements

grant 24/7 access to the space

easy to manage

up to 4 Doors

keyless entry with keyfob/card

up to 1000 users / 50 Teams

hackable!

affordable

Research

After some googling we found hint to an networked doorlock, commonly used in China: The ZK C3-400. It supports different types of identification-devices like card-readers, fingerprint-readers and pinpads, as long as they speak the “wiegand”protocol.

The main benefit

Someone already hacked it and published the code on github…so we thought..

The pricetag was tempting as well: roundabout 150Euro for a complete set of 4 readers – pretty affordable for a makerspace!

Setting up the controller was pretty easy: Connect the powersupply and plug it into the network.

Using the supplied software, configuring the device can be easily done in under 20min!

Setting up the electric doorlock…

Getting the door-buzzer in place was a different story though..

It took us two hours to saw, bend and knibble through the metal doorframe and install the little buzzer.

Connecting it to the controlboard is pretty simple though – just connect a 6-12V powersupply to the board, install a protective diode, set the jumpers right and route two wires to the doorlock.